


First cut is the deepest

by Lola425



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-01 03:25:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12147606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lola425/pseuds/Lola425
Summary: Close the den door, fellas.  Is that too much to ask? A reimagining of how the tight family came to be.





	1. The First Cut is the Deepest

I hold the knife loosely in my hand as I put the finishing touches on the cake that I’m about to serve for dessert. It is lovely, a frothy white confection, pretty as a picture, probably too fancy for a casual meal, but I’ve just so enjoyed having Whizzer for dinner these last few weeks that I felt like celebrating a little. When Marvin suggested bringing his work colleague home for dinner, I thought it was a little strange. Marvin was not what you’d call a “joiner”, although he played a little racquetball, went out for drinks a couple of times a month, he rarely talked about work and never brought anyone around, ever. I guess I should have been suspicious, right then, but I was so focused on trying a new recipe for Chicken Marengo that I had clipped out of the Sunday Times, that I smiled and said, “anytime.”

Anytime had turned into a couple of times this month. Whizzer seemed sweet and Marvin seemed happier having a friend around to talk to, and the whole arrangement left me strangely energized. Marvin, certainly, became a different person with Whizzer around, more charming, looser. He played the gentleman of the house with aplomb. Whizzer would playfully flirt with me and I would giggle shamelessly, like a teenager. It felt nice, having masculine attention that wasn’t focused on washing dirty socks and cleaning up messes. It probably wasn’t a good sign that Marvin and I seemed to need a third party in the house just to be able to talk to each other civilly these days, but I figured I would take what I could get. I stand back from the cake, knife in hand, admiring my handiwork. When I was young I never thought that I would consider a perfectly iced cake an accomplishment, but here I am: icing a cake while Marvin and Whizzer are playing chess or talking about the game, or doing whatever it is men do, in the den. Better call the boys back to the table, it's getting late. I stride down the hall. The door to the den is ajar, but I don’t hear anything coming from inside. Shrugging, I figure they’ve already made their way back to the dining room so I reach over to pull the door shut. 

Big mistake. Or not, depending on how you feel about your husband’s tongue down another man’s throat as his hand firmly squeezes his left buttock. I do not know what to do. Life as a good Jewish housewife prepares you for many things, but this particular chapter had been left out of my social training manual. 

What I want to do: barge in and demand to know what the hell is going on, push Marvin forcefully out of Whizzer’s arms, toss Whizzer out the front door, and forget this night, these weeks of nights, ever happened. 

What I do: back away from the den until I am halfway down the hallway, take a deep breath to steady my voice, yell “Marvin, dessert!” and head back to the kitchen, because to make a scene now would mean something and I don’t think I know what any of this means. 

*********************************************

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry is the mantra repeating in my head as I carry the cake into the dining room. Whizzer and Marvin are seated next to each other, grinning like two schoolboys sharing a secret. Ten minutes ago, I would have found it cute. I would have been incurious about whatever secret they might be sharing, just pleased to have been instrumental in setting the scene—the perfectly kept house, the gourmet meal, the pretty cake. As a hostess, smiling guests mean success. This smiling guest, though, means something altogether different. I am not joining my guests, I realize, I am interrupting them. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry still echoing in my head, I place the cake down on the table. Whizzer and Marvin make all the right noises for two people being presented with a delicious homemade dessert, at least I think they do because all I can hear is the tone, the words are lost to me as I replay Marvin’s hand on Whizzer’s ass. But even more horrifying was the look on his face while he was doing it—like a man consumed by lust. His mouth covering Whizzer’s, words whispered, tongues exchanged, kissing and smiling at the same time. This familiar man, my husband, and I had never seen him look at me that way. Things that had hounded me my whole marriage, things I blamed myself for start coming into sharp focus. Those late nights that Marvin spent “at work”, the distance in his eyes whenever he happened to have them open when we had our—weekly? monthly?—sex, his usual prickliness turning to surliness, even meanness, these past few months. All of it starts to make sense.

Marvin asks me if I’m OK, I must have been standing there, holding the knife, poised to serve for too long. I shake myself out of my reverie, apologizing, giving no excuse because Marvin doesn’t want one, not really. The knife, I realize, has been in my hand the whole time. I am gripping so hard that my fingers are white at the knuckles. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. I take a deep breath and slide the knife into the cake, its dense white layers giving way under my gentle touch. I look over at Marvin, notice that he is watching me closely, my little mental break must have been longer than I thought. As I pull the knife out of the cake to make the next cut, I catch Marvin’s eye, see him smile wanly at me in return, and I am instantly filled with rage. How dare you, I think. All this time, all the effort I took to make this marriage work, when nothing would have worked. I was everything he wanted, he used to say. Oh really? More like nothing you wanted, judging from that kiss, that smile, that grab in the den. Don’t scream. Don’t scream. Don’t scream. The mantra has been replaced. As a lift the knife to make another cut, I wonder what they would do if I suddenly took it and plunged it right into Marvin’s belly? That belly that he had been working so hard to tighten, night after night of sit-ups on the floor of the marital bedroom while I—ha! how sad, how predictable—am clipping coupons out of Ladies Home Journal. They’d never expect it, that’s for sure, but since tonight seems to be the night of defying expectations, perhaps…

The knife feels good in my hand. I imagine the blade sliding into the flesh, more dense than the pastry, leaving little flecks of icing behind as I pull it back out, wipe it on my apron, and walk out the front door. Whizzer clearly has intimate knowledge of my husband, probably of my bedroom too, let him figure out how to clean up the mess. This thought makes me feel a little better, giddy even, and I start to chuckle. Trina, are you OK? I think I hear Marvin ask. And I think, but don’t think I say, never better. Instead, I do what I do best, I serve the cake and smile. I’m not sure what is to come, my anger glowing like a coal, not yet ignited, all red-hot potential, but I do know that I will remember the feeling of the knife in my hand and remember that I always have options.


	2. That's the king, treat him nice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marvin speaks.

Well, the situation’s this: she saw us. I wasn’t sure until I saw her face as she served the cake. It was her smile that gave it away. It’s always been a little too bright, a little too hopeful. Tonight, the smile was still there, but it was vague, emptier than usual, a different kind of fake. And I know that I should be afraid of being discovered. I mean I’ve ordered my entire life so that I would not be found out. I married Trina, for God’s sake, to avoid being found out, and now she knows. Part of me wonders if this will be the moment where she just snaps. She’s so tightly wound, so focused in her pursuit of domestic perfection that this could go either way. She might continue to ignore and repress, which has been her coping mechanism up until now, or who knows, maybe I'll see a whole new side of Trina. 

I have, admittedly, been acting out like a surly teenager: staying out late with no explanation-- smelling of smoke, obviously drunk, and communicating with Trina in curt phrases, one-word answers and faraway stares. It’s almost as if I want her to lash out. Really, I need her to lash out if I ever expect to be free. The breakup, which if I wasn’t sure of before meeting “my work friend” Whizzer, I am resolute about now, will have to come from a catastrophic break. There’s no other way. Trina is a fixer, a solver, a dreamer. If presented with the dissolution of our marriage in a logical way—I’m gay, I love men, I don’t want to be married anymore—she will try to fix it. She will move mountains. She will not rest until all options have been exhausted. Until she is exhausted. Because to give up on the dream of the perfect marriage, the perfect family is unthinkable for her. It was unthinkable for me too, until Whizzer. The other men meant nothing. They were a release valve whenever the pressure of keeping up the pretenses that I’d constructed my life upon became too much. I honestly felt, STDs aside, that I could—that we could—be married and be a version of happy going on the way we had been. Me, taking what I needed when I needed it, and Trina looking the other way, accommodating me. Self-absorbed and selfish, I know. I’m not saying I’m proud of it, but it was working. I didn’t anticipate, couldn’t have anticipated, Whizzer—oh god, Whizzer. He changed everything and I’m not even sure he knows it. But Trina certainly does now. 

Our marriage has always been like a game of chess. She, the Queen, the freedom to move through the marriage however she wants, never worrying about her place on the board. Me, the King, tightly constrained in my movement, while the entire game rests firmly on my shoulders. If I am weak, if Trina lets her relentless protection of me down, game over. And Trina has executed her moves perfectly so far, guarding me with everything at her disposal: beautiful home, delicious food, lovely hair, stylish clothes, loving attention--the perfect wife and mother. She might have kept this going forever, but for another Queen, one with just as much power, but different: broad shoulders, disarming smile. The stylish hair and clothes are the same, but this Queen comes with a secret weapon that even the most steadfast, loving wife could not possibly compete with—do I need to say what it is? Do I even know what it is? Even Trina’s most inventive moves could not hope to compete. And so we’ve arrived at the endgame. I have no moves left. The question isn’t if I will fall, but when. 

It's her move now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I am trying to process my anger at Act I Marvin through Trina and Whizzer. I had to go back and soften my Marvin up because my first pass at him was grim. Also, I vow to keep clunky chess metaphors to a minimum.


	3. A Bit of Strange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whizzer reacts.

Something really strange is going on here. I mean stranger than just eating-dinner-with-your-lover’s-wife- after-making-out-in-the-den-strange. Listen, I enjoy a bit of strange as much as the next guy, and this little thing with Marvin has been great. We met at a bar: he, looking like a sad sack in his baggy khakis and a hangdog expression, and me, looking like—well, look at me. I have always been a sucker for a closet case in dad pants, despite the fact that it has never, not once, brought me anything but heartache. So, there he was and there I was. I took him home, we fucked, perhaps not earthshatteringly (not yet) but competently. Against my better instincts we kept meeting. We couldn’t keep our hands off of each other. I would find myself thinking about him at inappropriate times. I literally did not have a dick in my mouth without imagining it was Marvin’s, even when it wasn’t. I assume Marvin felt the same way since he called daily, leaving filthy messages on my machine when I wasn’t there. Sometimes, I didn’t even pick up the phone just to hear his voice telling me what he wanted to do the next time we were together. For a closet case, the man knew his way around a dirty message. Then came the dirtiest message of all, Marvin inviting me to dinner at his house, with his wife. 

Of course, I told him I wouldn’t go. I’m not a monster, or up until a few weeks ago I was pretty sure I wasn’t. While I wouldn’t exactly call myself an upright citizen, I had a code of ethics that I lived by: drink in moderation, drugs only on the rarest of occasions, no men under the age of eighteen or over the age of 60, and married men once and only once. I know, I know, I should probably have taken married men right off the table at the start, but like I said I enjoy a bit of strange now and then. I figured grown men can decide for themselves where to stick their dicks, my ethical responsibility ended at my own. So once and only once, no attachment and thus no homewrecking. Then Marvin comes along and suddenly my whole code of ethics flies out the window. And why? Certainly not because he was the hottest specimen that ever crossed my path, nor the biggest, nor the richest, all of those milestones had been crushed by other men. Was he the smartest? Surely. The meanest? Probably. And I guess smart and mean must be my sweet spot because as I mentioned before I. could. not. stop. And history has shown that once you’ve let one rule fall, the rest are sure to follow, and Marvin wore me down. He whispered pretty and dirty things to me until I gave in to his suggestion for dinner. Just once. And only because I could just imagine the mind blowing fucking that was likely to happen afterwards.

My first impression of Trina? Gosh, what a lovely smile. I tried to imagine Marvin walking in the door every day and being greeted by that smile, and all of Marvin’s petty complaints about his home life did not compute. Trina’s smile was light, airy, sweet, so freaking earnest. I felt horrible about five minutes after walking in the door. What the fuck was Marvin thinking, asking me here? After ten minutes, Trina had made me so comfortable in her home, so comfortable with her hostessy care that I found myself responding, turning on the charm. I can be quite charming, and Trina and I laughed, some of the humor at Marvin’s expense, sure, but not all of it. She seemed to light up in response to the slightest attention, the smallest compliment. I would glance over at Marvin, and he wouldn’t be glaring exactly, but watching us almost puzzled, as if he couldn’t figure out what was going on. Really, what did he expect me to do? Come into his house gay barrels a-blazing and blurt out that I was fucking her husband? Or did he think I would pepper our conversation with bitchy hints until I made her cry? No, I came in and conducted myself as advertised, a new co-worker of Marvin’s who didn’t know anyone in the city yet. Jason was there the first night, too, and me and the kid hit it right off. 

So picture the scene, me, Whizzer Brown, homosexual about town, impeccably dressed and perfectly coiffed eating Marvin’s food, flirting with Marvin’s wife, and bonding with Marvin’s son while Marvin sat at the other end of the table, fiddling with his hideous tie, peeved and uptight. At one point I heard Trina hiss at him “you’re being rude” and when Trina left to get Jason started on his homework, I turned to Marvin and said, “yeah, Marvin, you’re being rude”. I get the patented Marvin lopsided smirk in response, so of course I have to go right for the tie. “I thought I threw that tie out the last time you were at my place.” Smirk again, “You did, I fished it out of the trash on my way out.” Exaggerated eyeroll from me, “You’d think I’d have some influence on you.” Smirk, again, but more smutty than smirky. He doesn’t need to say a thing, and we are right where we always end up. Staring at each other, dicks rock hard, waiting for the other to look away. “You seem to be having fun,” Marvin says. Me, smiling, “I am. You have a nice family Marvin, she’s nice.” His gaze softens, “She is,” he concedes. Looking over my shoulder to make sure we are still alone I reach under the table and squeeze his thigh. I’m sure I mean the touch to be sexual, that’s how our thing has been wired, but as I reach over, simmering beneath the sexual tension, the touch feels more like a gesture of comfort, and the way my stomach drops just then, it feels like the start of something, though it can’t be. I’m cursing myself under my breath “fuck, it just can’t be.” I snatch my hand back as Trina enters the room and I am certain, absolutely certain, that I will never see either one of them again.

Never again turns into every week. Marvin, once again, sweet talked me and convinced me that it was OK, nothing would happen, he just wanted—needed--to see me. I fell for it, of course. The sweet, domestic civility of our first dinner together held out for about two weeks, and then before I knew it, every time Trina left the room, Marvin and I would be all over each other. I could pretend that I was passive in all of this, but I have to admit making out with your lover while his wife is bustling about in the kitchen was kind of hot. I’d suffer immediate remorse on Trina’s return to the room, but always managed to push that remorse aside whenever Marvin’s tongue got anywhere near my ear or his fingers threaded through my hair, tugging. I knew we were taking chances, and although we never talked about it, Marvin knew too. It didn’t matter, we wouldn’t stop. All the fighting we did when we were alone, all of the bickering, the meanness, the name-calling, none of it could happen in front of Marvin’s family so all of our interactions while in his house were shot through with pure, uncut lust. And like every junky in the history of addiction, we went too far. Which is why we find ourselves sitting around a vaguely wedding-style cake, in the formation of the world’s most fucked-up triangle. Thank god Jason is out at a sleepover, I think, because there is no doubt in my mind that this evening is not going to end well. 

She saw, of course she did. Was this the plan all along? No need to start the hard conversation if you are caught in flagrante delicto, right? Have I been a pawn in this game all along without realizing it? I look over at Marvin, and there it is--the defiant, angry look that he gets when we are on the edge of a fight. I start to feel sorry for Trina, but when I discreetly look her way, pointedly not meeting her eye, I think I see steel where I’m used to seeing softness. I hope Marvin knows what he’s up against. I am in sudden need of a drink, and a good fucking, and am so glad that I can just walk away. Which is exactly what I do, without a word to either of them. Whizzer Brown is many things, but a pawn ain’t one of them.


	4. Love isn't sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trina puts down the knife.

The door clicked behind Whizzer who had simply stood up, scraped his chair back and left without a word. I see Marvin’s eyes follow him, and he makes a move as if to rush out into the night to follow. I throw the knife that I am still tightly gripping to the table and its clatter calls him back to me.

“Were you ever going to tell me, Marvin? Or were we just going to keep going on like this,” my hand gesturing to the remains of our sordid little dinner party, “indefinitely. You and Whizzer making a fool of me. Laughing at ‘poor, clueless Trina’”, my voice takes on the singsong quality of a schoolyard bully that I have never used before. It feels good, like I am channeling Marvin. “Until when? Until Jason leaves for college? Until Whizzer gets sick of waiting around for you to make up your mind?” Marvin starts to speak but I point at him to stop, “Not that Whizzer is waiting around for you, because I guess it should be clear now that the little case of syphilis you brought home wasn’t really from that one time with a hooker that you claimed it was. He looks lovely, Marvin, but he’s probably diseased.” I spit out, the venom on my tongue a strange, but not unpleasant, flavor. 

A spark in Marvin’s eyes tells me that I hit a little too close for comfort. “Well, maybe darling so are you,” he shoots back. I flinch, as if he had actually struck me. He was never this mean, never this cruel.

I want to meet his cruelty with anger, but as quickly as it had flared, it is gone and I begin to cry, “I was everything you wanted.” I wonder if he remembers saying it, and if he meant it. I turn away from him and try to compose myself. I cannot begin to imagine how I am to start not to love him, because I do, and that’s what makes this so much worse. This moment will have to be the first step away.

My tears always bring out the “professor” in Marvin. He processes emotion by distilling it down to its elements. “Love isn’t sex Trina, we’ve talked about this. Love and sex can be two different things.”

Not this again. This stupid thing that he says he believes, but can’t possibly. It is a thing to say to gloss over what he sees as my hysteria. On its face it makes sense, but it is not true, and for once I say so. “Not for me, Marvin, And not for you either, because you have always, always wanted it all…everything. You couldn’t have just a part of me: I had to quit my job, have your child, take care of your house, cook your dinner. Be ready and willing when and if you decided you needed me, but keep my own messy desires to myself. You’re a child Marvin.” 

For the rest of the long evening we lob accusations and recriminations back and forth. I toggle between anger and tears. I can feel that he is thinking about Whizzer even as I am in tears in front of him. He has left this marriage, of that I’m sure, but I will not let him off the hook so easily. 

I demand that he think about Jason, if not about me. And that’s when his tears come. I am not using Jason as a pawn, but my son is a blameless victim and Marvin owes him every last effort to give him the life he deserves. Marvin promises to try. I promise too. These promises are different than the ones that came before, because they are now being made in the light of full disclosure. I know. He knows I know. And we both know we are going to fail, but we tell ourselves one last lie. For Jason. 

A week into our pact to try, and he doesn’t come home for dinner some nights. Two weeks in and he stays out all night. Two weeks and one day in and I pack his suitcase and leave it by the front door. He sees the it when he returns home the next morning, and I think I see relief in his eyes. I want to blame Whizzer for all of this, but I know that it is pure Marvin. The way Whizzer looked when he left our home the last time told me that he had had enough, but if I know Marvin he has bullied, or bought, his way back into Whizzer’s life. Good, I think. He’s Whizzer’s problem now.

I make him tell Jason the truth, won’t let him leave here by dissembling or using some flaccid euphemisms to explain why he is leaving. The only family that Jason has ever known is breaking up, and Jason needs to know that none of it is his fault. I will not let my son be victimized by more lies. Jason cries and holds onto his father like I’ve never seen him do before. His anger will come later, but right now it is only tears. I hate Marvin then, but as I watch them hold each other I am also overcome by love, and I know that it is up to me now to keep this family together, improbably, yet somehow. Marvin can run off, but I will stay behind, hold to the ground while my world shifts around me. I am filled with such sadness, sadness that I will only give its full head at night, muffling my sobs in a pillow so Jason doesn’t hear. I will get up the next day and do what needs doing, same as always—with one difference. Marvin’s secrets gave him the power before, he had the power to choose—stay or go, love or leave, but that power has shifted to me. I can use it now to hurt or to heal. Love isn’t sex, Marvin was right, but it is unkind, and spiteful in a million ways. I will choose healing, of course I will, but I can’t guarantee that there won’t be some hurt—his? mine? Whizzer’s?-- along the way.


	5. Sorta.  Kinda.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thrill of sorta kinda.

Whizzer wasn’t the first. Not the first kiss, not the first fuck, not the first time I’d cheated on my wife. I’d kissed quite a few men by then, and when I met Whizzer I figured he’d fall into his place in the queue, the next in a series of exciting, but largely empty, kisses. I’d no hope that my sex life would be anything more than anonymous encounters held furtively in dark corners and then I’d go home to my wife, my family, my real life until the next time. My first kiss with Whizzer wasn’t the earth-shattering one, the marriage shattering one. 

Intimacy isn’t in the kissing or the fucking, anyway, it’s in the connecting. If love isn’t sex, its inverse, sex isn’t love, is also true. I couldn’t risk everything for nothing, so I tested him. I played the “how far would he go for me” game. I would draw a line in the sand and Whizzer would cross it, at first hesitantly, and later boldly, acting as if he didn’t care. I’d draw another one and he’d cross it again, a little less hesitantly, acting cocky. Whizzer was no strategist. No matter how many times I’ve tried to teach him chess, he doesn’t quite get it. Chess isn’t how he thinks, he says. Our games had to be less complicated. I draw the line, he crosses it. 

The one line that Whizzer won’t cross is admitting that our little thing is anything more than a bit of fun. “I was rich, he was horny, we fit like a glove” was our standard line at parties--it always got laughs. That may have been true at first, maybe it’s still true for Whizzer, I don’t know. It’s not like we talk about it. He breezes through his days, meeting friends for canasta, which I still can’t tell if it’s actual canasta or some kind of code word for screwing, because he does a lot of that too, whenever and wherever he can. Monogamy is not Whizzer’s strong suit. He also takes a lot of baths, that seems to eat up a lot of his mornings. I love that languidness about him, the louche, dissipated lifestyle he’d been leading until he moved in with me. Was probably still leading if you ask me. Our fights often centered around what Whizzer refers to as my “bougie” sensibility and what I refer to as his smarmy bearing. Pardon me for being saddled with a solid middle class attitude. I’ll never be as loose and easy about anything as Whizzer is. It’s just not in me.

So we fight. A lot. We cannot go more than a day without tangling up about something. It was as if our deepest longings were smuggled into this relationship in sassy banter and expressed in bickering. Things usually stay at an even simmer, bickering about where I put my jacket, or about how many months we’ve been together. Sometimes things boil over into knock-down, drag-out altercations where the bickering turns ugly and mean. I call him cheap, insinuate he’s more property to me than a person, goad him into a defensive position. He’s not as good with words as I am, so things sometimes turn physical, vicious. It’s a push and a shove and a grab that transmutes into a pugilistic tango, with just as much passion behind it as any dance. The fighting always, always ends up in bed. It’s not all bad. We circle what’s real with a sorta-kinda attitude. We can’t or won’t admit a thing. 

So why divorce my wife for sorta-kinda? Remember when I said that the kiss wasn’t the marriage-wrecker? That’s true. It wasn’t the kissing that did it. It was the smiling. Whizzer makes me smile like no one ever has. Even when we’re tussling about one thing or another, he makes me smile. The first time we were lying in bed together and he said something--I don’t even remember now what it was probably something bitchy about Knot’s Landing, he talks a lot about Knot’s Landing for some reason--and we both burst out laughing, that was the moment when I sensed that everything was about to change. It was thrilling--all of it--the laughing, the fighting, the fucking, sometimes all three at once. If you had a chance at that kind of thrill, even if it meant that you would have to kill the person you thought you were and toss away everything in your life that you had, until that moment, held dear, wouldn’t you do it? I would. I did. I love him. Sorta. Kinda. And it might kill me, but I won’t stop until he sorta kinda loves me back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't like doing Marvin chapters. Also I just finished reading Andre Aciman's Call Me By Your Name and borrowed "deepest longings smuggled in banter" from him because I thought it fit.


	6. You'll kill me if you stop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whizzer might be a better psychiatrist than Mendel, just sayin'

Marvin wooed me back. Just because I like to fuck men other than Marvin does not mean that he did not get under my skin. What we have has not yet run its course. There’s fuel there, and fire. He told me that he and Trina were trying, but he said it on his knees through a mouthful of dick, so how much could he have meant it? And when he showed up at my place two weeks later, suitcase in hand, I let him stay. I guess I should be flattered. No one has ever left his wife for me. He plied me with bouquets of roses, fancy dinners and his divorce papers, and we moved in together. Those were heady times. We got lost in the novelty of it. It should have been easy. I wanted it to be easy, but Marvin is a man who makes something as simple as breakfast into a complicated dance around his psyche. As easy as I want it to be, is how hard Marvin makes it.

His need, his desire, is bottomless. He demands I love him as if it is his right, yet yields nothing. The emotion is there, you can sense it lurking, large and unwieldy. Marvin’s idea of love is all nooks and crannies, hollows you get lost in for an hour or two before his need overwhelms you, sucks you dry and then spits you out, and you emerge breathless and bereft. He extends his hand only to yank it away if you get too close. I’ve tried to figure it out and the only thing I can say for certain is that Marvin is a little more unbalanced than I previously assumed. It’s the closet, of course. You can’t keep yourself hidden from everyone for so long and suddenly be able to express yourself completely. True, some men come bounding out of the closet fully formed, but Marvin is not one of them. What he needs is a homo-Sherpa to lead him out from behind all those repressed emotions, to ford him over all that anger and resentment that keeps bubbling up. Me, I am not that Sherpa. I find myself fumbling around in Marvin’s dark corners, as lost as he is. 

I would be lying if I told you that I didn’t think about leaving once a week. I would also be lying if I told you that on some nights while Marvin is out playing family man with Trina that I didn’t pull his ratty grey sweatshirt out of the hamper and wrap myself up in its ugly-ass funk to watch TV, only to tear it off and toss it back where i found it when I hear his key in the door. He doesn't need to know that about me. He might get ideas. Do I love him? No. Yes. They’re both true. Our relationship is like those plastic Magic 8 balls, give it a shake and you’ll get the answer. It might not be the answer you want, but ask again later, who knows? I don't mind the uncertainty, because at any given moment I am sure. I am just unwilling to promise the next moment.

What is keeping me here besides the money and the sex, both of which he throws around like they are nothing and which, truthfully, I could get anywhere? Well, you wouldn’t have to ask that if you’ve ever seen Marvin smile. More to the point, if you’d ever _made_ Marvin smile. His smile, when it comes, is a gift. It animates his whole face. It doesn’t have a bright white movie star glare, nor does it have Trina’s sweet sincerity. Marvin’s smile is a force. It is the crack through which all those repressed emotions escape, however briefly. It is large and goofy and too gummy by half, but I live for it, and it is even more precious because it is rare. It almost makes up for his crazy need to name this thing, to tack it down, to claim me. I just want things to be loose, for us to enjoy what we have. But Marvin wants, as we’ve established, more.

Marvin fancies himself a Noel Coward type, all brainy and witty banter, the "gay" part of his life twinkling in the background like a tune plunked out on a piano. He wants me to embellish this little fantasy, to be a sweet piece of arm candy, at home making dinner and clipping coupons, all docile and domestic, looking pretty and at the ready with a well-made martini and a willingness to screw. Not for anything, but he could have just bought Trina a harness and a dildo and saved us all a lot of trouble, if that’s what he really wanted. I’m not Trina, and Marvin knows it, but he is still trying to shoehorn me into a mold of his making. Why burst out of the closet only to shove yourself into a box? The problem is that Marvin wants it all, but has no idea what “it” is. He doesn’t realize that maybe he already has it, and he just hasn’t figured out how to fit all the pieces together.

And I’m not the only one subject to his subtle manipulation. He is obsessed with Trina, to a toxic and unhealthy degree. I realize that Jason needs a father, and that he wants to make sure Jason feels secure, but his insistence on having dinner at Trina’s a couple of times a week and then coming home and complaining to me for the next hour--Trina did this and Trina didn’t say that and Trina was cold to him and why can’t she love him, blah, blah, blah. Ugh, it’s weird. Marvin’s in therapy, but as far as I can tell it doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve told him over and over that it probably isn’t therapeutically sound to be seeing a psychiatrist who is even more neurotic than his patients, but Marvin’s got a few years in with Mendel and shows no intention of a) changing things up now or b) getting any better. And now he’s convinced Trina to see Mendel, too. I’ve never claimed to be the voice of reason in any scenario, but mark my words, injecting Mendel Weisenbachfeld into this toxic stew of a crumbled marriage is a recipe for disaster. 

Marvin wants me to love him, he wants Trina to love him, he wants Jason to love him. He wants and wants and wants, but doesn’t give anything back, not properly, nothing that lets you know you are seeing him as he really is. As generous as he is with his money, he measures out his love as if there is a finite supply, as if every smile diminishes his power. The only expression of vulnerability I’ve ever seen from was in our earliest days, during what I think of now as the “dinner with Trina” era, before we were living together. I was going down on him, and normally I’m used to men getting lost in my technique, a lot of closed eyes and ecstatic moaning, naturally. But I could feel none of that from Marvin. I stopped for a moment, pulled away, and looked up to see Marvin gazing down on me, teary and perfectly still. We locked eyes for a moment, his hands gently stroking my hair, and I heard him whisper almost so low I wasn’t sure I was meant to hear, “You’ll kill me if you stop.” Then he pushed my head back down. At that moment, I wasn’t sure what it was he didn’t want me to stop, but I believed him, completely, that if I stopped I would kill him. So, confused and pleased both, I've kept going.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "You'll kill me if you stop" is a line from Aciman again. It was my jumping off point. I was originally going to put those words in Whizzer's mouth, but then I went back to Whizzer Going Down (as you do) from In Trousers and felt that it better fit Marvin. Trina up next.


	7. Transference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically, everyone tells Jason to see a psychiatrist.

You might find this hard to believe, but after the dust settled on our divorce, I invited Marvin and Whizzer back into my home for dinner. Marvin had been coming anyway, insisting that Mendel said it was important that Jason to see his parents interacting with each other in a normal, friendly way. I gave in, it wasn’t like the divorce was so acrimonious in the end. Were there tears and anger and recriminations? Sure, but what could I do? I’m sure Marvin did his best. He tried to be something he was not and he failed. HE failed, not me. He poured that guilt about his failure into the settlement. He gave me everything I wanted and more. And while the money took some of the uncertainty out of my life, it couldn’t remove the sting of my own disappointment. I tried very hard not to let Jason see my sadness and anger, but I’m only human and I couldn’t hide it all the time. Jason seemed alternately listless and angry and very little that I did or said changed his behavior. He didn’t want to see his friends, refused all my attempts to get him to socialize, and basically spent all his time playing chess by himself. I figured the family dinners couldn’t hurt. 

The first few dinners with Marvin were tense affairs, mainly because he breezed in as if nothing had changed. He took his customary seat at the table, made the same small talk, played the same after dinner chess with Jason. For him, our home was still a place of refuge, just like it always had been. I imagine living with Whizzer could get to be a little “much” compared to the cozy nest I spent years making for him, and he seemed happy to be with us. It was a little different for me. I couldn’t escape, I had no refuge. I was managing my own sadness, Jason’s recalcitrance, and Marvin’s guilt all on my own. There were times, seated at the table with a smile plastered on my face that I remembered the cake knife in the drawer and what I might do with it, and that was enough to get me through. Sometimes, to just see Jason soften up and turn back into the sweet, uncomplicated kid he had been before all of this was enough. Slowly, we found a balance. 

So of course, Marvin, being Marvin, couldn’t leave well enough alone. He asked to bring Whizzer no fewer than ten times before I agreed. Whizzer was suitably contrite, made a point of getting me alone and apologizing, even brought me a cake that he had made. I was polite, but distant, and even though we never quite recaptured the easy, flirty way we interacted before I realized he was stealing my husband, it didn’t take long before the four of us were dining together like we were one big happy family. That is, if one big happy family included simmering resentment, awkward pauses, and lots of teeth-gritting politeness. To be fair, Jason genuinely liked Whizzer, and on warm spring nights the two of them would head to the park to throw a baseball around, an activity that I had no aptitude for and Marvin actively avoided participating in. Some nights, things bordered on cozy. And then I’d catch those two in some small domestic intimacy and things would sour.

On those nights, you might find me in the kitchen lamenting Marvin and Whizzer’s obvious happiness. It was written all over their faces, written all over the hand fondling they did under the table when they didn’t think I was watching. They just looked so damn happy, I couldn’t help but be so damn mad. Did I chop my fruits and vegetables a little too enthusiastically on Whizzer days? Sure, but only the phallic shaped ones. My cutting board became the scene of a bloodless vegetal bris. What did Marvin expect--that I would throw the two of them a bridal shower? Was he looking for a blessing? Not likely, not from me, not quite yet. All I wanted was what Marvin had, a man to love me, or to like me, or to even just help me. 

That’s why when Marvin suggested I meet with his psychiatrist, I was only too ready to agree. At the very least I could get some pills and finally get a good night’s sleep. I did worry that Mendel knew too much about us. I imagined what Marvin must have said about me and worried that he’d take Marvin’s side, that I would appear the way Marvin described me to him, which could only be Marvin’s version of the truth and not pretty. 

I needn’t have worried so much. When Mendel answered his office bell, he instantly put me at ease. He had a compact athleticism about him. His handshake was firm and warm. His smile was sincere. He looked like every boy I had danced with at the Jewish Community Center when I was thirteen. He brought that feeling instantly back. You would think that being transported to your awkward preteen self would be unwelcome, but honestly, I wanted that feeling of a new start. I could deal with the awkwardness and uncertainty about who I was if it meant I’d get a do-over. I didn’t tell Mendel this until much later. When he asked what brought me there, I told him I felt like damaged goods, and I wanted that feeling to stop. 

The work began, and it felt good. I stopped dissolving into tears over nothing. I started curling my hair again, pinking up my cheeks, accessorizing. I felt like I was becoming a woman again. There’d been enough therapy in my family history that I recognized transference when I saw it. Intellectually, I knew that what I was feeling for Mendel was a byproduct of the therapeutic process. And that probably would have been enough, to be seen as a woman by someone as kind and handsome as Mendel.

But Marvin never could leave well-enough alone. He saw the change in me and he wanted the same for Jason. Thus, began our campaign to get Jason to see a psychiatrist. Jason crossed his arms and outright refused again and again. Nothing we said could move him-- Marvin, powerfully insistent and me sweetly asking. Petulant and angry, Jason accused us of failing as parents. I feigned outrage, but there was no denying that we failed the kid. When insulting us didn’t get us off his back, he channeled his inner Marvin and orchestrated a master move of passive aggression, impressive for a boy of his age: he asked to talk to Whizzer, to get his opinion. Classic. Perfect. Jason could dismiss us and insult us at the same time by asking for guidance from the last person in the world either of us trusted with anything. Me, because he was my sworn enemy, and Marvin, because he didn’t trust Whizzer to decide what to cook for breakfast, let alone make a serious decision for our son. Plus, Whizzer has been dismissive of therapy all along. He doesn’t believe it’s helping Marvin and rolled his eyes whenever Marvin suggested Mendel to Whizzer or to me. Jason saw this, and thought he could get an ally to take up his campaign. Who better than his father’s barely responsible lover? 

What could we do? We called Whizzer over, and he strutted in exactly like you’d imagine--fixing his already perfect hair, straightening his already smoothly pressed jacket, taking this assignment a little more seriously than we thought he would. He knelt next to Jason and Jason asked, “Whizzer, do you think I should see a psychiatrist?” Whizzer laughed out loud, long and hard. I gritted my teeth and glared at Marvin, telegraphing to him he better get his boyfriend in line. He flicked Whizzer in the back of the head, harder than he needed to, hard enough that I heard its echo from where I was standing on the other side of Jason. Whizzer whirled around and Marvin gave him a pointed look whose meaning was irrefutable—say yes or bear the consequences. And because those two can’t let their push me/pull you dynamic flag for even a minute, Whizzer replied with a noncommittal “maybe” punctuated with an echo of a laugh in his voice. 

Once again, it’s up to me to get involved and save this thing. I stand behind Jason, get Whizzer’s attention and throw my whole body into nodding yes. My look is no less pointed than Marvin’s, but Whizzer has a lot to make up to me, he knows it, and I am not above using it to get what I want. Whizzer changes his tune, then, and tells Jason he should absolutely go. Jason doesn’t seem to believe him, but sees that further resistance to the plan will be futile. I can almost see him calculating his odds. Reluctantly, he finally acquiesces. But Jason is not done being difficult. He is Marvin’s son after all. He will only agree to go if Mendel comes here, to the house. Marvin immediately rejects the possibility, but I don’t care what it takes, I will get Mendel here, no matter what. Did I have another motive, pursuing this unconventional option? At the time I didn’t think so, but it would be naïve of me to think that I didn’t let my nascent attraction to Mendel creep its way into my thoughts. Since Marvin left me, I found myself confronting new aspects of my personality that I had no idea were there. I kind of liked it.

I called Mendel. He came, and he kept returning. Jason may not have been getting any better, but I sure was. If I had known what came next would I have stopped it? The old Trina would have. But I was not the old Trina, not anymore. Marvin was working so hard to create a tight knit family, fashioned the way he wanted it to look. It never occurred to him that I may have other plans. And it certainly never occurred to him that Mendel would be a part of those plans. Poor Marvin, he set the whole thing in motion. And he only has himself to blame for once.


End file.
